Jeremy Corbyn WILL be on the ballot for the upcoming Labour leadership contest, the party’s chief administrative body announced this evening.
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Opponents of the embattled leader are banking on Mr Corbyn struggling to get the backing of the 51 MPs and MEPs required for nomination.
The veteran left-winger also revealed he had taken “soundings” from lawyers and he expected to be on the ballot as the sitting leader.
Mr Corbyn was chosen as Labour leader a year ago on a wave of support from the party’s most left-wing activists.
Labour’s rules say a leadership candidate needs backing from 20 per cent of lawmakers – now 51 Labour MPs and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) – to stand in a new contest.
Britain’s opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn insists he will fight for the Labor Party leadership and suggests he may go to court if lawmakers exclude him from the contest.
The ruling Conservatives are also in the midst of a leadership contest after Prime Minister David Cameron, who campaigned for Britain to stay in the European Union, announced on the morning after the referendum he would resign.
Angela Eagle has launched her Labour leadership bid so inevitably she’s called on her fans for support.
“I am not a Blairite, I am not a Brownite and I am not a Corbynista, I am my own woman”, she said, referring to previous party leaders Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Corbyn.
Eagle, who has been considering a leadership bid since resigning as shadow business secretary in late June, said the party needed to move beyond the factionalism and divisions of the Corbyn era.
If the NEC decides he is not automatically on the ballot, Corbyn has said he will mount a legal challenge.
Solicitors acting for Jim Kennedy, a Unite official and trade union member of the NEC, have written to party general secretary Iain McNicol warning they will take “injunctive action” unless Mr Corbyn is automatically on the ballot.
“Jeremy Corbyn is unable to provide the leadership that this huge task needs”, she told a news conference.
While the Hull East CLP has yet to meet over the issue, the outcome of this afternoon’s Labour National Executive Committee (NEC) could cause further rifts among Labour’s rank-and-file membership.
Easington MP Grahame Morris has reiterated his support for Jeremy Corbyn to continue as the Labour leader after Angela Eagle launched her campaign to head up the party.
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Allies of Jeremy Corbyn have called for unity within Labour as speculation has risen of an early parliamentary election in the United Kingdom after Home Secretary Theresa May became Britain’s prime minister-designate.
